An agrochemically active component, pyribencarb or methyl={2-chloro-5-[(E)-1-(6-methyl-2-pyridylmethoxyimino) ethyl] benzyl} carbamate is a known benzyl carbamate-based bactericidal agrochemically active component, which is disclosed in Patent Document 1 for the first time. Non Patent Document 1 discloses that it is characterized by having a wide range of control spectrum and exhibiting an excellent control effect on diseases of fruits and vegetables such as gray mold, crown rot, brown rot and the like, caused by various phytopathogenic fungi including ascomycetes.
Harmful organisms to be controlled in agriculture include plants (weeds), animals (pests), microorganisms (phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria, etc.). Practically, there is no universal agrochemically active component that exerts its action on all of them without causing adverse effects on useful plants. In modern agriculture, agricultural land is managed taking advantage of herbicidal active components for weed control, insecticidal active components for pest control, and fungicidal active components for disease control, respectively. In addition, a single herbicidal active component, a single insecticidal active component or a single microbicidal active component is not necessarily successful in controlling all weeds, all pests or all microorganisms. There usually exist high sensitive species and low sensitive species of grass, insects, or fungi for each agrochemically active component. Considering such circumstances, in order to control all harmful organisms for a wide variety of agricultural land etc., it is necessary to combine a plurality of agrochemically active components depending on the subject to be controlled.
To meet such needs, several mixed agrochemical compositions containing multiple agrochemically active components are commercially available. However, the number of combinations of agrochemically active components is enormous, and it is practically impossible from the aspect of profitability to commercialize all of them as a mixed agrochemical composition taking into consideration the market size of each mixed agrochemical composition. In addition, each agrochemically active component has inherent physicochemical properties. For example, there are some combinations such as an acidic agrochemically active component and a basic agrochemically active component, which may be difficult to be prepared into an agrochemical composition because they mutually exert adverse effect on their respective stability.
Therefore, when a combination of agrochemically active components, which is not commercially available as a mixed agrochemical composition, is to be applied to agricultural land etc., it is necessary to separately prepare and apply the agrochemical compositions containing the respective agrochemically active components. However, performing complicated spraying operations as many number as the prepared agrochemical compositions requires a great deal of labor and time for farmers. Accordingly, it is widely practiced to mix a plurality of agrochemical compositions on site and spray the mixture to complete agrochemical treatment by a single spraying operation. The operation to mix the plurality of agrochemical compositions on site is referred to as blending or tank mix. The latter may sometimes refer to a mixture prepared on site.
However, as mentioned above, each agrochemically active component has its own physicochemical properties. Depending on the particular combination of agrochemically active components to be mixed, it typically causes undesirable phenomena such as aggregation, which may interfere with spraying operation. Also, regardless of the compatibility of the agrochemically active components, the auxiliary component such as surfactant used in one agrochemical composition may exert undesirable effects on the other components contained in the other agrochemical composition to be mixed. Generally, an agrochemical composition is a formulation that has been thoroughly examined for constitution in order to ensure quality, that is, physicochemical properties and storage stability. It is in a high-quality form as long as it is completed as a single package. However, the actual performance is not necessarily guaranteed when external factors are introduced, that is, when blended with other agrochemical compositions.
As mentioned above, the pyribencarb is an antifungal active component and does not exhibit herbicidal and/or insecticidal activity. Accordingly, an agrochemical composition containing the pyribencarb as an agrochemically active component is considered to be used being blended with an agrochemical composition containing another agrochemically active component, especially an insecticidal active component in some cases. One example of the insecticidal active component widely used in Japan is etofenprox. However, when the pyribencarb was added to the diluted solution of the agrochemical composition containing the etofenprox, aggregates formed rapidly. In addition, the agrochemical composition containing the pyribencarb prepared according to a conventional method also had good dilution performance by itself, but a similar aggregation tendency was observed when blended with an agrochemical composition containing the etofenprox. That is, there was a problem with the blendability between two of them.
If blendability of a combination of individual agrochemical compositions is not good, agrochemical composition manufacturers can freely adjust the constitution of each component depending on their own arbitrary decision, when both of agrochemical compositions to be mixed are their proprietary preparations. However, if manufacturers of each agrochemical composition are different, it is not possible to modify the constitution of agrochemical compositions produced by others. Therefore, one should study the constitution of an agrochemical composition manufactured by oneself and try to improve blendability with an agrochemical composition produced by others. However, it is extremely difficult to attain the goal under such constraint that a cause of poor blendability included in the agrochemical composition produced by others, if any, cannot be eliminated.
Patent Document 2 discloses a wettable powders composition for agriculture/horticulture having good physical properties which is characterized in that it contains an alkylenebisdithiocarbamate metal salt or bisdimethyldithiocarbamoyl zinc ethylenebisdithiocarbamate as an active component and 0.2 to 5% by weight of at least one of hydroxypropyl cellulose and hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose, as an example of prior art which improves blendability of an agrochemical composition under the aforementioned constraint. Patent Document 3 discloses an aqueous suspension agrochemical composition which contains a sulfur particulate as an active component; and two or more nonionic surfactants selected from polyoxyethylenealkylphenol, polyoxyalkylenearylphenyl ether and polyoxyethylenealkylphenyl ether, and one or more anionic surfactants selected from naphthalene sulfonic acid-based and dialkylsulfosuccinate, as dispersants. Patent Document 4 discloses an aqueous suspension composition containing finely pulverized calcium carbonate as an active component.